


What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light

by AstroGirl



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Related, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Social Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 01:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18458234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: Alphys isn't the kind of person who gets lonely.  But that doesn't mean she doesn't need a friend.





	What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light

**Author's Note:**

> A little Alphys character piece, set during the course of the game. Written for Gen Prompt Bingo, for the prompt "introvert."

Alphys isn't the kind of person who gets lonely. She's... She's just _not_. She can be perfectly happy alone with her research, or with her noodles and her anime, and she's better at communicating with a keyboard than with her voice – although to be honest, she's not great at that, either, not if there's a person on the other end – and she just never really _needs_ anybody. 

Not that it isn't nice to have someone around sometimes, because it is, yes, but it's also stressful and then you have to, well, to be with them and talk to them, and that's complicated and scary, if it's someone you don't know, or if it's someone you do know who might not like you as much if they spend too much time around you. Fictional people are easier. 

But while her poster of Mew Mew doesn't judge, she doesn't talk back, either, and Alphys increasingly, confusingly, feels like she just _needs_ someone to talk back. Someone who _likes_ her.

And that's ridiculous, right? Because she doesn't get lonely and if she does, she has people. Like the amalgamates. They're always there, and, okay, they're not great conversationalists, but they know her secrets, which should make them easy to talk to in one way, at least. But they aren't company. They're _shame_. They're her horrible little secret, the living proof that she's trash, that she's going to keep on being trash, because if she were a better person, she'd tell the truth and send them back to their families, and she's not doing that, is she?

Or there's Undyne, who keeps texting her, and that's even worse, because Undyne is the _best_ , Undyne is the person she really, really _wants_ to talk to, but she'd just die if Undyne knew, if Undyne looked at her and saw how awful she was, so she has to keep ignoring Undyne's texts. Well, not ignoring them. More like reading them over and over, and hovering a claw over the reply button and never, ever answering them, not even when they start to show up in all caps, which they usually do pretty quickly.

There's Metatton, and you'd think she ought to be able to talk to Mettaton, because she's keeping _his_ secret, so he should keep hers, if she told him, plus he already knows she's the kind of garbage person who'd lie about, say, being able to build a robot with a soul. But she can't. It's not that she doesn't trust him, because she does. Well, she kind of does. Well, she feels like she ought to. But Mettaton loves to gossip, and if he can trade a secret in for ratings he will, and she can't blame him for that, can she? Not after everything she's done to help him get where he is. And, anyway, now that he's on TV, he doesn't talk to her like he used to.

Which is funny, because she always relates better to people who are on TV.

And that's where the problem with the human starts. There they are, on her screen, and she knows they're real, knows they're actually out there, but watching them is so much like watching a TV show. A _good_ TV show, with a hero you want to root for, a hero you could imagine being friends with.

A hero who's coming this way, in real life. A hero who would appreciate the offer of a helping hand. A hero who, if they looked at you and smiled and told you they liked you, you could maybe start to believe them.

Alphys really, _really_ wants to believe them.

All it might take is just a few more secrets.


End file.
